What's Happening at the Hospital?

If you spend any time around doctors, nurses, or firefighters, you may have heard about some controversy around Beth Israel and the ambulances. Even if not, you might have heard someone complaining somewhere, or maybe you were unlucky enough to need an ambulance and noticed the difference yourself. 

So What's Happening?

To put it simply, the personnel ambulances aren’t going to be as advanced, which means that in some situations, they won’t be able to start treatment until they arrive at the hospital. 

How Did This Happen?

About a year ago, Exeter Hospital officially joined the Beth Israel Lahey Hospital System. According to Seacoast Online, in the agreement, Beth Israel promised to invest $375 million into Exeter Health Resources, to fund and operate at least 10 beds in a psychiatric unit, and to maintain labor and delivery services for at least 10 years. What they did not agree to was to keep Advanced Life Support (ALS) services in place, and they recently announced that these services would be removed as a “cost cutting” measure.

What's ALS?

ALS stands for Advanced Life Support, and generally means the paramedics who go to 911 calls in small, hospital-owned intercept vehicles. The paramedics have more advanced training than typical EMT (emergency medical technicians), and so can respond to more serious problems, either going directly to the emergency or meeting the ambulance on its way to the hospital. Basically, paramedics can help treat people that would otherwise need to wait until they arrived at the hospital to get help. In some situations, they can also respond much faster than volunteer EMTs, who need to get to the ambulance at the hospital before they can drive to the emergency.

Why is Removing Exeter's ALS an Issue?

Generally, large towns and cities will have their own ALS divisions, but small towns like the ones around Exeter tend to not have enough calls to warrant their own branches. Because of this, ALS services have been housed at Exeter Hospital to be able to respond to calls in the surrounding areas. Although these small towns will still be able to request ALS services from larger towns like Seabrook or Portsmouth, these will take much longer to arrive; and further, will have a lot more demand due to the cutting of Exeter’s division. This could potentially cause delays that risk lives.

Further, if paramedics currently working at Exeter Hospital see their jobs as being in danger, they might leave to go to areas with more consistent need, where they will be less likely to be laid off. If this happens, the area’s ALS support will disappear even without ever being oficially removed.

So What Will Happen?